The Foundations of Menswear: A retrospective by Net-A-Porter

Hello Saloners,

Today I was scoping the Internet for interesting tid bits and found this little piece (http://www.net-a-porter.com/magazine#/13/13) which I think is quite relevant. If you've seen any runway shows this past year or really stepped foot into any mall you can see it, men's wear has firmly asserted itself into women's wear lines. And thank goodness because a little tailoring never hurt anyone. But this retrospective from Net-A-Porter looks back at the trendsetters who did it first. I like what they've done but how did not one look from my fav Katherine Hepburn make it on the list? Like this one for instance? Were there just too many to choose from or what? Such a large oversight by such a fashionable source.

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It's Going to Be a Thing: Adventures in Pants

Note: This post has a lot of links to pictures featured on other websites. It may seem annoying to have to click on all of these outside links, but I urge you to do it. The pictures are awesome. And that way you won't be confused when I reach the conclusion of my post.

The Sartorialist is always an inspiring blog fashion-wise. But recently there have been some images that have been even more inspiring than usual.

This was the first image on his site to feature these crazy wide-legged pants. Then a couple days later, he posted this image with similar pants. They really stuck with me in a positive way, and put me in mind of a picture that I saw on Shorpy a long time ago. (Note the guy all the way to the right).

The 1930's/1940's feel of these pants really fits for me right now (see Hobo chic post previous). But as all of these images feature men, I thought to myself - how will this translate to women? The only word I can think of is Palazzo, but honestly most palazzo pants are ugly and.. ugh... just no way. So here is what I came up with:


High waisted, extreme wide leg. Very nice. I can see them with a paper-bag type waistline too. Hello Katharine Hepburn! Read More......

Fun Site

Becky told me about this site a long time ago, but I kind of forgot about it until today. It was a joy to rediscover, let me tell you. So the site is called Polyvore and the premise is that you can create outfits with their huge store of images of clothes, shoes, accessories, etc from different sites on the internet. It is SO fun. I made an amazing set that was inspired by Hobos. You know you want to see it. After the cut!



Hobo Clothes - by Twitoyear on Polyvore.com

Oh heck yes. Hobo chic is very relevant to us in this time of economic hardship. I tried to stick with functional clothes with a 1930's feel to them. And of course no self-respecting Hobo would leave the boxcar without his/her bandana. This one is just a little cuter than any of theirs would have been.
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It's Going to Be a Thing - Lifestyle Edition.

So I don't know if you guys are as annoyed by huge, energy-consumptive houses as I am, but if you are, you will be very interested in what I have to show you all today. So I found this website (again from the blog A Continuous Lean, I swear I won't continue stealing posts from there), and it is just about the coolest thing I've seen in awhile. Now I think I had heard about it before but not really registered it, so maybe this will just be old hat for the rest of you. But if it's not....

Tumbleweed Tiny House Company. It's awesome! I think that someday, most likely a whiles away in the future, the housing pendulum will swing from the wasteful, greed-induced, monstrosities that we see being built today, towards smaller, compartmentalized, environmentally thoughtful houses like those that are featured by this company.

Now maybe the houses of the future won't be AS tiny as some of these, but you get the idea. So now for your viewing pleasure - check out the inside of the tiniest house they have - as shown by the creator of the company (who is honestly kind of cute - not that that has influenced me liking these houses). (B T Dubs, my favorite tiny houses are the Enesti and the Z Glass house. So cute!)

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Suddenly a very active weekend on the blog.

One of my favorite blogs A Continuous Lean just did a post with these videos, and it was such a good idea that I just straight up am going to jack it right now and post it here too.

So seriously - just watch this, and think about how badass this is. It's the goddam BEATLES and they did a concert on top of a roof! Who of their fame level would do that today?! Number one - not possible, because NO ONE is of their fame level. Number two - NO ONE is cool enough to do this anymore (I will amend this statement if anyone - not someone lame though - does indeed stage an illegal rooftop concert.) P.S. part two of the concert is after the cut.





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My go-to Romance Novel Site has proven themselves.

So I just went to my regular Romance Novel Site to check out what was going on, and I was very pleased to see that in their weekly writing post they discussed The Portable Dorothy Parker. As that was one of our books this year, I was very interested to see what they had to say. Here's a link to the article. I figured I should post it since it pertains to our book club.

http://www.likesbooks.com/atbfnew.html

ALSO, I just downloaded a couple songs from the new Carla Bruni album. I really like them a lot. Carla Bruni just has an incredible voice and if I could speak french fluently I imagine that her songs would be very singable, and those are my favorite kinds of songs. This new Carla Bruni album is just interesting in a lot of ways. Not only does it seem to be a really good album, how interesting is it that the first lady of France has put out an album?! What would Laura Bush's album be like if she put one out? How incendiary would that be if she did?! More importantly, what would our future first lady, Michelle Obama's album be like? Basically, I kind of think that Carla Bruni is a badass. And she is without a doubt the best dressed politician's wife of our time. Although Michelle Obama is really doin us proud in the U.S. Read More......

Something to Talk About: Books and Gender Bias

so I just read a post at this blog theartofmanliness.com (ok, I have been reading a lot of blogs about mens style lately - it just intrigues me - so thats how i found this blog) about the top 100 books a man should read. Here is a link to the article: http://artofmanliness.com/2008/05/14/100-must-read-books-the-essential-mans-library/

I think it was a really interesting read. And it got me thinking, if there was a list of the top 100 books a WOMAN should read, would it be much different from the list a man should read? What books do you think would be in the top 100 books list for women that wouldn't be in the list for men? And perhaps vice versa.

My votes are for (big surprise here):

Anne of Green Gables
Little House on the Prairie
Little Women

Those three books are just great classics that deal more with growing up a girl and have great examples of strong women who are really great, relatable role models for young girls.

I feel like there would be more Hemingway on the guys list than the womans list, just because Hem is so masculine. Really though, for the same reason thats why I think women should read Hemingway - to get a man's point of view on the world.

What do you all think? Read More......

Blog Post!

I love blogs, and I found two really good ones today.

I am becoming increasingly obsessed with mensware. This is a really good blog about men's style. Maybe I want to work designing men's clothes or something. I guess that means that I need some clothing construction and tailoring experience.... hmmmm..... I need to get on that.

www.acontinuouslean.com

And this site I found mentioned on the above site. It's so cool!!

www.shorpy.com

So any good blogs, etc that you guys are finding? Read More......

A Sign from the Heavens?

O M G I think I've just had a sign that I NEED to work for Boy by Band of Outsiders!

I was just perusing their website, and they have This Boy by the Beatles posted on it!! I have it posted on my facebook! And every time I watch it I want to cry! lol. But seriously - I think the Beatles guide me in all the rest of my life milestones - why not this too?!?!

I for real feel like this was a sign to me. I hope this isn't just the illness/the-meds-i've-been-taking talking. But for reals - go check this out.

http://boy.bandofoutsiders.com/ Read More......

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